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US president Biden's 2024 Budget places great emphasis on aid to workers and families in the US and shores up the Medicare hospital-insurance trust fund. He will do this by raising taxes on the wages, investment gains and self-employment income of people making more than $400,000 a year. Additional savings come from increasing the drugs on which Medicare can negotiate prices from 20 to 50 drugs.  Childcare- families making less than $200,000 a year will get subsidized child health care, the lowest income families paying nothing. Housing- Building and preserving 2 million housing units. Series of tax credits to make buying homes more affordable. College education- Reducing the cost of going to education with $12 billion allocated for this. Offering tution free community college. Family and Medical Leave- Federal paid family and medical leave program. Retirees- a $2000 cap on out of pocket cost of prescription drugs for retirees. Reduced taxes for under $400,000 income households- This would be done without increasing the deficits to extend the tax reduction from the 2017 tax cuts to households making less than $400,000 a year.     ...

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Having an adequate supply of N95 masks is critical for each hospital tackling the coronavirus pandemic. The lack of enough masks leaves health care personnel without the basic protection and is a grave emergency. Hospitals are resorting to reuse of the masks in this crisis and this is not a good practice as it increases the chances of infection. President Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act on April 2 against 3M. This gives the federal government more control over 3M's operations to ensure that it goes all out to make the healthcare N95 masks that the hospitals need in this grave emergency. This report in the WSJ covers the situation as of April 3 on the supply of M95 masks for health workers and others. N95 masks block 95% of very small particles. Supply in the U.S. is for 50 million N95 masks. Demand in the U.S. is for 300 million N95 masks as estimated by the Department of Health and Human Services. in March- this is how many are needed by health care workers to fight this pandemic in the U.S. The principal manufacturer is 3M. 3M company has doubled its production since January 2020. The trend before this pandemic was to send production over to China and other countries. This is changing now with the pandemic and the U.S. policy shifting to be self sufficient in medical supplies in the event of an emergency. A policy Peter Navarro, who heads the agency in charge of getting medical supplies, says President Trump is insisting be implemented. Hospital buyers supported the earlier trend to keep costs down, but this appears to be a costly mistake, putting health care workers in hospitals across the U.S. without the basic protection they need. Minnesota based 3M invented the first modern disposable masks in the 1960's. Interestingly 3M continued to make millions of masks in the U.S. even though competitors moved manufacturing overseas. The 50 million disposable masks 3M made globally went to workers in industries where it provided extra safety from metal shavings or other substances, and medical workers. Now 90% of masks go to medical workers. 3M ramped up production globally since January 11 when the pandemic first hit to 100 million masks a month globally, and 35 million a month in the U.S. at plants in South Dakota and Nebraska. 3M says that it will import 10 million masks from its factory in China, which earlier this year was restricted from shipping it outside China as China needed masks for the pandemic. About 10 million more masks are made by two other manufacturers Alpha Pro and Louis Gerson Co.  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ordered 600 million N95 masks from 5 companies to distribute to hospitals and build up the national medical supply stockpile. 190 million each of this is from 3M and Honeywell and 130 million Owens & Minor Inc.  3M says it will make 50 million a month in the U.S. by June. Honeywell which had moved production overseas, plans to bring back production to the U.S. by making 10 million masks by May at its Rhode Island and Phoenix plants. There is a company in Singapore that makes one million masks a day in China and other Asian countries, Pasture Pharma Pte, but most of it is committed to government agencies in China.   ...

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What is behind Pew Research Report finding showing an unacceptable concentration of wealth that endangers democracy. Higher income groups making $244,000 a year in 2024 gained 19 percentage points of the total US Household Income moving from 29% in 1970 to 48% in 2024. About 50% of the nation's income going to 20% of its people and most of that to 2%-5% of the people of the US. The gains meant loss of 17 of these percentage points for middle income households making $106,000 a year that went from 62% in 1970 to 43% in 2024. Another 2 percentage points was suffered by vulnerable Lower Income groups making $35,000 a year who owned 10% of US wealth in 1970 went down to 8%.  The problems of divisiveness in the Nation come from three distinct areas. First money for state financed education for all being put into wars in the Middle East from Reagan through Obama and Trump and some wasted through capital misallocation to low priority investment by faulty capital market allocation. Second the high cost of pharmaceuticals and healthcare putting a heavy burden on low income and middle income households making $35,000 or 106,000 a year. Third the neglect of manufacturing that cutoff the opportunities for middle and lower income households and their one chance to move up the ladder. And the parallel shift of resources to technology and financial sectors that created opportunities for a smaller group of immigrant and higher middle income households with these skills.  These are the sources of America's distress and each problem is being attacked at its source by president Biden- exit from Afghanistan, canceling student loans that are egregious and prevent the investment in education America needs, large sustained investment in manufacturing and new supply chains, antitrust action on tech monopolistic behaviour, redrawing the shape of America's pharmaceutical sector to provide access to medicine to all parts of the population.    ...

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By failing to show a grasp of the problems of rural poverty and lack of upward mobility, of health and education, in the rural parts of the US, Paul Krugman ignores the spirit that for so long kept the lights on for rural America in the time of FDR and Truman. The NYT's Thomas Edsall has done a great service to America by showing where the Democratic party under Clinton and Obama lost the spirit of FDR and Truman of standing by the common man, of "The People, Yes" that Carl Sandburg wrote so eloquently about not so long ago.

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Young people's testimonies in this analysis in The Guardian show they are willing to draw systemic conclusions about the way elites have gone into this pandemic and how they shaped societies and countries, and how thy have handled this pandemic when it hit. Most countries in the west in the US and Europe were caught without basic medical supplies for a pandemic and without the ability to make masks and basic equipment for months as they pandemic spread. This happened as capital was misallocated away from health, education and basic infrastructure to an extreme degree that left countries and peoples unprepared and unprotected.

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The fast food industry in US relies on the franchise model which has been deeply affected by depressed wages, poor working conditions and other worker abuses. Governor Gavin Newsom signs into law on Labor Day 2022, the FAST Recovery Act which established a state council tasked with setting wage standards for the entire franchise and food industry. Workers will now get a seat at the table to set standards for wages, and health and safety standards for the industry. Wages will be set at $22 per hour starting next year for about half a million workers in the franchise and fast food industry in California.

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The Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Republican House health Care bill shows 24 million Americans would lose health insurance over 10 years. In terms of budget savings the bill saves $337 billion over 10 years. The increase in uninsured comes from the roll back of expansion of Medicaid under the House plan, the reduction of tax credits, plus the removing of income based credits replacing it with tax credits based on age. President Trump is promoting the bill saying it will reduce the premiums that have gone up since Affordable Care Act was passed and increase competition. House Speaker Ryan in promoting his plan says he is not in "some coverage beauty contest." The House Plan says Ryan, does not mandate that all be covered, but simply says coverage is in a free market giving people the option to buy insurance that they want, so that the numbers of insured would not be as many as under a mandate.

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France was exceptionally well prepared says France 24, citing a report in Le Monde, for the SARS crisis in 2002 and the H1N1 influenza in 2009. A billion masks were stockpiled by 2009. Following the H1N1 influenza not appearing in any significant way the media, political parties and the public shifted their attention away from public health crises preparation. For H1N1 the government spent 1 billion dollars some of it going to pharmaceutical labs. The eurozone financial crisis that followed the global financial crisis shifted policy to austerity measures. The entire preparation effort for influenza type health crises was abandoned as too costly.  The same pattern repeated in Britain which was also well prepared before 2010. Austerity budgets after 2010 had little room for public health investment.  One could say a similar pattern was seen in the U.S. Today the worst hit countries are U.S., Britain, France and other European countries. France which had 1 billion masks in 2009 to tackle a possible H1N1 epidemic finds itself with 150 million masks in March 2020 and scrambling to find masks. Some masks which were usable were even destroyed as expired, ministers and experts who had built up the prevention effort in 2009 were even demoted and forgotten, as was much of the preparation in these years. It wasn't just medical supplies pubic awareness had practically disappeared. In the U.S., in Europe, the same situation of a lack of public awareness so that experts, government, and the public could work together quickly, was clear to see. In countries such as Taiwan the preparation led to speedy response at all levels, making contact tracing, isolation of clusters effective. In the U.S. and Europe this early, early, period was lost leading to makeup mitigation measures and the growing sense of a loss of control over the virus. ...

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Some local governments in China are making vaccination mandatory. China is setting a goal of getting 64%  of the population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021. In European Union countries mandatory vaccination by country or region is now being put in place to fight new coronavirus variants that spread faster in the population. The reopening of economy, business and tourism is increasing the risk from variants in summer 2021. The mandatory vaccination is a way to increase the percentage of the population that is vaccinated. Getting younger people who lag behind to get vaccinated is important to protect the percentage of the elderly population that is still not vaccinated. There are risks also to the younger population as seen in previous waves of the pandemic. The initial hesitation to make health pass showing a person is vaccinated mandatory was because only a small fraction of the population was vaccinated in Europe. Now that over 50% are vaccinated in most EU countries and UK, that hesitation thinking that it is discriminatory to those people who did not have access to vaccines no longer exists. Ample vaccine supplies and the misinformation spread about vaccines are making action on health pass necessary to protect the overall population. National governments in France, Denmark, Austria, Greece, and local governments in Germany, Portugal and other EU countries such as Ireland, Italy, see the danger from coronavirus variants that spread quickly as too big to take any risks a second time. ...

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A new West Coast Model is emerging with ballot measures in the states of Washington, California and Oregon. The model is to make up for decades of faulty income distribution which favored tech communities in west coast states leaving behind people from minority communities and the working class outside tech hubs such as San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. During this period budgets for education and healthcare, social services and essential infrastructure suffered as budgets were squeezed for local governments. Minimum wage also lagged behind and communities struggled to keep up. Washington votes for a ballot measure that raises the minimum wage to $13.25 statewide and mandate paid sick leave for workers. In California a ballot measure makes permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires to use these funds for education. In Oregon measure 97 places a gross receipts tax on corporations with annual sales in Oregon over $25 million, raising $3 billion a year for schools, health care and other programs. The California and Washington measures are likely to pass, Oregon uncertain, say experts. And even in Oregon supporters have learned from the experience to put forward new proposals on the ballot. The Washington measure is supported by Nick Hanauer, and Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures in Seattle, who say it is essential to put more money in workers wages to increase growth and to bring better lives outside the tech hub areas. Most of the tech booms of the last two decades have not touched the areas outside tech hub metropolitan areas. The conservative approach adopted in Louisiana and Kansas of reducing taxes first and then when holes in state budgets developed to cut education, health and other service expenditures has not worked, and it has led to the backlash in the form of the new West Coast Model, which is expected to be brought up in other states in the east and midwest. The tech hub areas have grown with the boom in tech but this has largely ignored the rural areas, communities just outside of the tech cities, and led to uneven and distorted growth shortchanging the working class and the middle class, and hurting investment in education and healthcare across each state. Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution conservative think tank ,says that its hard to deny that the balanced growth for all communities across the state has lagged far behind as the tech booms boosted growth in the economies of California, Oregon and Washington. An article in the German online site Zeit on Silicon Valley described this vividly showing how this can happen in communities sitting side by side in the San Jose area, with minority Hispanic communities and working class communties seeing very little of the benefits of growth. ...

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Judo4Balance exercise for falling down safely are popular in Sweden and Netherlands where volunteer instructors help seniors practice falling safely. This is important for older adults so that they can live lives to the fullest without the fears that restrict activities and lead to mental heath issues from isolation or restricted activity. There are no judo based fall prevention programs in the US and this report shows the need to help seniors in the US with similar programs.

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NatureQuant is a startup in Oregon that is providing ways for people to spend more time in places that best support the link of nature to healthy living. It has developed a Nature Score using satellite imagery on noise, air pollution, park space, trees, and open spaces. One can look up Nature Scores by neighborhood as shown here in The Washington Post by Harry Stevens, Climate Lab columnist.

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Weak and poorly equipped public health systems, densely crowded conditions, make coronavirus spread extremely serious in South Asian and African countries. India imposed a complete lockdown of the entire country. South Africa imposed a 21 day lockdown enforced by the military. Decisive and strong action is needed early. Pakistan acted early to quarantine pilgrims entering the country from Iran. Pakistan's government has announced a $20 monthly wage subsidy for poorer households. The average in Africa is 20, according to the UN, and South Asian populations are also very young. Generally hotter climates may offer some offsetting factors to makeup for the lack of strong public health systems. India made major strides in direct deposit to bank accounts of 1.3 billion citizens by the government for many social safety net schemes in the last 5 years. It has also computer records of all citizens under a plan underway for a decade. The nationwide rollout of 4G mobile technologies has connected every citizen including remote areas. This should assist in the identification and isolation of affected areas and people. Other factors that mitigate the spread will be access to medicine when medicine and vaccine is developed for the virus. India has a large pharmaceutical industry, scientific labs and other medical resources similar to South Korea, which should help limit the affected areas and people. ...

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Harris was on the Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday where she reminded television viewers about the values America needs going forward, values that stretch back to the days of previous leaders FDR, TR and Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson who penned the words in the Declaration of Independence. "I think a lot boils down to values. I just read values on the line here. It does. I mean, think about it, Oprah. The idea that some would suggest and that my opponent suggests, which is that the measure of the strength of a leader based on who you beat down. Come on. The real measure of the strength of a leader. You don’t know who you lift up." Harris and members of the audience were visibly shaken as they heard the story of a girl Amber Thurman  who died in Georgia after seeking help following an abortion ban in Georgia. Harris said- "Amber’s story highlights the fact that, among everything that is wrong with these bans and what has happened in terms of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it’s a health-care crisis. It’s a health-care crisis that affects the patient and the profession.” ...

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Princes MBZ of the UAE and MBS of Saudi Arabia were seen as close with MBZ the mentor of Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia (MBS). Saudis and UAE differ on how high oil prices should go. Both MBZ MBS wider mindsets are close based on modernization of the Arab world. Oil price increases mean hardship for most of the world's population, a shift of wealth from more populous countries such as Turkey and India to countries with very small numbers of people as the UAE (9 million) and Saudi Arabia 35 million). It poses hardship in cost of living for people in Asia, Africa and in EU, the US. This calls for a vigorous effort to make the switch to solar energy to reduce inequality and wide disparities of wealth in Asia and the Middle East.

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The new Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain, George Osborne, put forward a new budget that marks a big change from the past. In an effort to cut the budget deficit by $180 billon over 5 years, Osborne announced a cut in spending for the public sector and welfare spending. There will be cuts in the budgets of government departments of 25% by 2015 except for health and international aid. Reduced spending on public housing benefits, disability benefits and other costs in the $285 billion welfare budget is part of this budget. He announced a 2 year wage freeze for public employees, and new medical screeing for persons claiming disability benefits. On the tax side the value added tax on many goods and services goes up from 17.5% to 20%. Capital gains tax goes up to 28%. And overall the proportion of tax increases to spending cuts is 1 : 4. Osborne referred to rich people in Britain "paying less than the people who clean for them" in instituting higher taxes, and he removed entirely 900,000 of the poorest people in Britain from the income tax system. Corporate taxes will be reduced from 28% to 24% over a 5 year period....

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Lobbying is a major problem in the US and was an issue in the last two presidential election campaigns. This is a problem in Britain as shown in the Greenhill scandal with a former prime minister. During the pandemic there is public dissatisfaction with the conduct of politicians violating the trust placed by the people. Recent reports of lobbying in Germany involved the giving of contracts for health supplies and PPE leading to new rules set by the CDU party for its members. 

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Warming of oceans by climate change cause US hurricanes Helene and Milton 2024. Ocean heat content in the Gulf of Mexico is much higher in October 2024 than the average heat content 2013-2023, as shown in this NYT chart. At a single glance one can see climate change at work. This is real America. And FEMA is stretched thin, not adequately funded for the natural disasters happening all over the US, yet Congress has failed to act, and the AI billionaires shown in today's NYT piece "Imperial Reach," talk about trillions of dollars they wish to divert from essential needs of the Nation in climate change action, disaster relief, childcare, health, and education, more than the GDP of European nations. In effect writing off the Nation's future and future generations.  

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US economic growth was 2.4% in the second quarter of 2023. Even though the Fed increased rates at 10 consecutive meetings by 5% since March 2022 to tackle inflation the US economy appears strong. Large investments in the trillions of dollars in US manufacturing and infrastructure, tackling climate change is what is different this time compared to the past 2 decades when bad decisions were made with twin wars in the Arab and Muslim world, and the supply chain was transferred to China, investments were neglected in infrastructure, education and health in public goods, and capital markets allocated money with decreasing advantage to the economy. President Biden was in a unique position after the pandemic to take stock of all these mistakes and move the nation forward in positive directions in a decisive way in scale as well as in spirit and determination. That he has done so is more proof of the resilience of America.

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For the first time the number of people vaccinated in a single state in India reaches 40 million. In Maharashtra state in western India, with state capital Mumbai, the vaccinations crossed 40 million on July 20, 2021, according to the state's Additional Chief Secretary for Health. India has vaccinated 410 million people by July 20, 2021. About 3 million people are getting vaccinations daily.

Maharashtra was one of the top 5 states in the first and second waves of the coronavirus in India. About 2 million healthcare and front line workers have been fully vaccinated in Maharashtra. Maharashtra has a 2021 population of about 125 million according to Aadhar and is the second most populous state in India after UP which has an effective vaccination drive. 

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Obama ACA subsidies to go directly to the people through Health Savings Accounts proposed by Republican Senators Graham, Scott and Cassidy in 2017, and again in 2025, and not to Insurance companies. In a post on his social media site DJT tells Congress that the ACA subsidies given directly to people rather than money sucking insurance companies would lead to a better result of people getting their own and better coverage for less money than under Obama type subsidies sent to insurance companies.  Much of Obamacare was done under a campaign from insurance companies and other health vested interests that undermined the original objectives so that however good the original objectives the watered down, disincentivising of reducing unproductive costs, led to a hotch potch band aid result. A common sense approach with the courage to get the right result that works for the people of the Nation to get good health care similar to Japan and other nations in Europe at reasonable cost is not a goal that an advanced nation like the US should see as unreachable or beyond our efforts, skills and wisdom. Obama and Bush failed, Bush in a major error to remove the negotiating power of government Medicare agency with pharmaceutical companies that Democrats failed to push back. ...

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The drop in IPO capital and venture capital is a sign that there is a new awareness of the importance of capital for public investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, and in health and education with the active participation and direction of the government and support in the US Congress. This is happening as there is a sharp decline in the productivity of capital invested by so called "tech" companies. And science and technology investments directed with government support are needed in new scientific advances for chip manufacturing. Other technological developments such as solar panel manufacturing to tackle climate change also need much capital, and electric car fueling stations for EV's.

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Senator Manchin wants other countries or regions such as the European Union to go first with the global minimum tax of 15%. Holdouts Poland and Hungary have not agreed to the 15% tax in the EU. After that the US could follow. Mr. Manchin is a Democrat whose vote is needed for Congress to pass the legislation. Currently the tax is set at 10.5% after legislation passed by president Trump.

Much of the funding for HEIRS - for Health, Education, Infrastructure, Retirees and Society- has to come from better collection of taxes, so that everyone pays their fair portion of taxes which tech companies are not doing in the last decade. 

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Prostate cancer is becoming the most common cancer. Here are some useful tips for tackling this health problem men face today. 

Diet should include fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables. Reduce dairy to three portions (cheese, milk), limit calcium intake to daily requirement, and cut down on animal based protein and fat. 

Fat building up in the thighs and other parts of the body including waistline increases risk. This makes it essential to limit BMI to 30 and waist inches around 37 or close to this. Regular exercize lifts the mood and helps cut fatty tissue reducing the risk of prostate as well as other cancers.

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The U.S. Census Bureau shows incomes of American households, the median household income, surged in 2015 by 5.2%. This increased by $2800 to $56,500. This is the largest increase since 1967. It shows that steadily improving employment and hiring is leading to improvement in incomes for the middle and working class. Ris in minimum wage has also helped . The largest increase was for the lowest 20% of the income tiers. Full time working women did better than men, with increase annually of 2.7% for women, and 1.5% for men. Nocitizen incomes increased 10.5% to $45,100, native born households went up 4.4% to $57,200. The number of people without health insurance also declined from 33 million or 10.4% of the population to  29 million people or 9.1%. Another way the changes are helping lower income households is the decline of the official poverty rate to 13.5% in 2015 by 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. Through a series of small incremental steps the path is being set for a recovery of household incomes for the middle class and working class. A bright spot is that the improvement has affected all age groups, household types, regions and ethnic groups, though among full time workers women did better than men. In this recession older white men have had more difficulties getting back into the workforce. This is reflected in the political scene in 2015-2016 for the election season. ...